Love Actually starred Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson as other films like Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Judas Kiss (1988) and the Harry Potter series. Thompson wrote down some thoughts about her friend Alan Rickman on Thursday after he died from cancer at the age of 69.
“Alan was my friend and so this is hard to write because I have just kissed him goodbye.
What I remember most in this moment of painful leave-taking is his humour, intelligence, wisdom, and kindness. His capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word.
That intransigence which made him the great artist that he was — his inedible and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me, and the fact that he never spared me the view. I learned a lot from him.
He was the finest of actors and directors. I couldn’t wait to see what he was going to do with his face next. I consider myself hugely privileged to have worked with him so many times and to have been directed by him.
He was the ultimate ally. In like, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely.
He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again.”
As Thompson mentions, Rickman directed two films starring his Sense and Sensibility leading ladies: 2014’s A Little Chaos starring Kate Winslet and 1997’s The Winter Guest starring Thompson and her real-life mother Phyllida Law. As Thompson & Shakespeare noted, we SHALL NOT see his like again. (via Vanity Fair)